Lies and Prophecy (8 page)

And then something brought my head up with a jerk.

Someone else was there, approaching from the opposite edge, a wraith all in black, with hair that looked silver in the moonlight and skin as pale as bone. And his eyes….

I met his gaze before I knew what I was doing, before instinct could warn me away. That we had a wilder on campus was common knowledge, but unlike some people, I hadn't gone out of my way to gawk. Quite the opposite, in fact—until now.

Wrenching my gaze down took a herculean effort. And then a second one, to keep walking, to nod as I drew near. As if he were just another student, passing in the night.

“Are you all right?”

His voice reflected oddly from the stone. I blinked, and he clarified. “You're shivering. And wet.”

I touched my dripping hair and blushed. “Oh. It's my birthday.” Which didn't explain anything, so I babbled onward. “I do this every year—go swimming on my birthday—so I jumped into the Copper Creek.”

He nodded, as if that made sense. I glanced down, saw he had a fistful of battered-looking late roses. “CM assignment,” he said, when he noticed me looking. Then he handed one of them to me. “I'm Julian. I'm sorry to have startled you.”

No last name given, but I didn't need it. I knew what he was, and that his surname would be Fiain. It was the Irish word for “wild,” and an international committee formed after First Manifestation had agreed it would be given to all of his kind, who had no families.

I still had the flower, dried and sitting in a bud vase on the windowsill. And the surreal quality of the whole thing had stayed with me, untouched by our subsequent friendship.

A year later, when I was on my way home again, full of disappointment that Julian hadn't come by or called to wish me a happy birthday, I found him waiting in the circle again. This time he gave me a pendant of smooth quartz crystal, intricately wrapped in silver. I'd used it as my focus in magical work ever since.

So now, even though it was quite out of my way, I headed for the circle.

He was there, of course, and just as striking in the monochrome setting as before. He rarely wore black. Why he did it for my birthday, I didn't know. His smile, though, lessened the effect. “Happy birthday, Kim.”

I smiled back. “Thanks. Fancy seeing you here.”

He extended one hand. I never quite shook the feeling that he did this by rote, as if he'd read in a book that normal people gave their friends presents on their birthdays. Still, I appreciated the gesture. This time, a black silk bag nestled in his palm; when I lifted it, the contents clinked. Reaching in, I felt stone, and pulled one piece out.

It was a rune. Raido, the symbol of movement and journeys.

Julian touched my wrist lightly. “Are you all right?”

Fleeting as it was, the physical contact jolted me. He did that even less often than he met people's eyes, and for the same reason. I looked up, involuntarily, and found his face lined with worry.

“No,” I said, the admission leaping free of me. “I came to Kinfield this afternoon, but you weren't there—something weird's coming up in my divination.” I gave him the story of the Moon reading, in simplified form. The warning of hidden threats. Then today's second act: the Tower, and Hagalaz.

Julian didn't need the significances explained to him. “But you drew Raido this time.”

“Yes. It seems to have stopped now. But I don't think anything's changed. Julian….” There was no rational explanation for the fear lurking in my subconscious, no reading or omen I could point to. Just my gift, whispering in my ear. “I think this has something to do with you.”

He didn't move, not even to blink. But in that stillness, everything drained out of him, leaving behind a person I hadn't seen since freshman year—not Julian, my friend, but the wilder who first came to Welton. Focused. Prepared.

And not entirely human.

Then he breathed, and broke the effect. “It's possible. I'll try to find out.” Life came back into his face. “You should get home, before you freeze.”

I curled my hand around Raido. It was inscribed in silver on a flat piece of black onyx, and absolutely gorgeous. He lived off a government stipend. How did he manage gifts of this quality? “Thank you, Julian. For these—not for the mother-henning.” He smiled, and on impulse, I offered a hug.

He accepted it, surprising me. No skin-to-skin contact, but still, wilders didn't do that kind of thing. Then he stepped back and nodded me onward. “Good night, Kim.” He turned and walked away across the circle, hands in his pockets. He wasn't going toward Kinfield.

I rubbed my shoulders to erase the lingering chill. Then, curling my fingers around the bag of runes, I went home to the bed I so desperately needed.

Weeks went by, and nothing.

No one else had seen the Tower like I had. Nothing leapt up to threaten me or Julian. I went to class, to Div Club, to the library. I fought methodically to think myself past my CM doubts, and made a little progress.

College. Nothing strange about it.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop made my temper short. Arriving at Hurst one Monday halfway through October, I snarled, “Papers can bite my ass,” and dropped my bag with an unceremonious thump.

Robert eyed me from his usual sprawl in his chair. “You're in an uncommonly good mood, I see.”

Julian was also watching me warily. No doubt he could feel the waves of irritation coming off me. Everyone in the dining hall probably could. “Did your meeting with Sheffield not go well?” he asked.

“It went fine. I just don't want to write the damn thing.”

“Ah,” Robert said, understanding. “The infamous History 205 paper. First Manifestation: discuss.”

“In fifteen to twenty pages,” Julian added.

Exactly. I had to summarize the various theories for the cause of First Manifestation, with arguments for and against. “And add my own opinion on the matter, too. Has nobody pointed out to him that people write their
dissertations
on that question?”

“Frequently.” Robert shrugged and passed me the salt. “Ally yourself with Medapati; she's the safe choice. Some variety of radiation, unmonitored at the time, which triggered the heretofore inactive genes in that portion of the population which possessed them in sufficient quantity for expression.”

He was quoting our textbook, almost word for word. Three-quarters of my classmates would do the same thing in their papers; most of the rest would paraphrase the physicist's own article, instead. But I frowned at my chicken nuggets. “If I have to write this thing, I'd rather pick something interesting to say.”

“Sheffield will love you if you do,” Julian said. “How many Medapati papers do you think he sees every year?”

I began placing nuggets on my tray, thinking out loud. “Religious explanations. Evangelical Christians trying to shoehorn it into their eschatology, Buddhists claiming half the planet achieved a degree of enlightenment at the same time, Wiccans crowing they were right all along.”

Robert showed what he thought of that by swiping and eating the “religion” nugget. “Conspiracy and terrorism,” he said, gesturing at one in another corner of the tray. “Biological warfare, or a chemical agent, or radiation attack. But everyone who claimed responsibility has been proved a crackpot.” He looked disappointed when I ate that one myself.

“A newly-restored connection to the Otherworld,” Julian said. “But we cut back on using iron
after
First Manifestation, not before.”

I gave him an opening, but he showed no interest in stealing my food. I nibbled on the chicken myself, thinking. “So that brings me to cousins of Medapati's theory—like fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field, only we
were
monitoring that, and the data shows no change.” No wonder so many people went with the easy choice. “Peprah?”

Robert looked dubious. “Not very scientific.”

“Not something we have a good scientific model for at present,” I corrected him. “But the advent of gifts made us rejigger a lot of theories anyway. Peprah could work if you accept the stories about Welton—that he showed faint psychic abilities
before
First Manifestation. That all wilders did.”

“And that somehow they called forth the full ability in themselves and everyone else? Without knowing they did so? You haven't convinced me, my lady, and I doubt you will convince Sheffield.”

“Wilders believe it,” Julian said quietly. “Not Peprah's whole theory—but about Welton, yes.”

A quick glance at Robert told me that was news to him, too. “I don't suppose it's written down anywhere I could cite?” Julian's mouth curled in amusement, and he shook his head. “Damn. Well, I may do it anyway, if only to give myself a treat for slogging through all the summary and evaluation. What about you guys? How's your golem going, Robert?”

He looked chagrined. “Well enough, but the class was not what I'd hoped.”

“By which he means,” Julian said, “that golems are harder than he thought, and it'll take more than one term to make anything complicated.”

His roommate conceded it with good grace. “Indeed. So far, I have built a construct to sort candy by color. Cower before my might!”

I laughed. “What about you, Julian?”

No immediate answer. The humor went out of Robert's mobile face like somebody had pulled the plug. “He, being a damned fool, will stake himself out for Grayson.”

Combat shielding again. I shot Julian a worried look, which he ignored. “Please tell me that's a joke.”

“Not in the slightest,” Robert said grimly.

“It makes sense,” Julian countered. The very lack of expression in his voice told me how bad it was. “How else is she going to measure our skill? You can't evaluate a shield by looking at it. You have to test it.”

“To destruction,” his roommate snapped.

“Exactly.”

“To
hell
with that. An undergraduate should not be in a class where his final exam includes being hit when his shields fail—and you
know
they will. No matter what you think, Grayson is better than you. And she won't be protecting you this time.”

“She's not putting shields on you?” I stared at Julian, appalled.

“No,” Robert growled. “She's not. Because, and I quote this bloody idiot, ‘We get complacent when she does. We've got to rely on our own strength.'”

And she'd barred Julian from using his power reservoir in class, on the legitimate grounds—or so he'd argued at the time—that he couldn't rely on access to it in a crisis. I hadn't liked the notion then, but at least he'd been able to draw on it for practice, which was probably the only reason he'd made it this far. Now he would face her with nothing but what remained of his own strength? It was madness. And the way Julian avoided our gazes said he knew it. “Julian, you can't do this. You're only an undergrad. She can't do that to you.”

“I signed the waiver.”

Shock hit me like a splash of cold water. “You can't be serious. Julian, it's not worth it.”

He turned his head and looked me directly in the eye. I fought not to react. For a long moment he didn't respond, and I could feel, with what remained of my attention, Robert swallowing half a dozen things he wanted to say. Surely Julian would not be this stupid. No class was worth volunteering yourself to be hit full-force when your protections failed.

“It's worth it to me,” he said softly, and left the table.

~

Had I done this to him?

Standing there in the monument, telling him something was coming. Trouble. That it had to do with him. But no, he'd signed up for his courses months ago; whatever was driving Julian, it predated anything I'd done. And I couldn't convince myself this was what my readings had pointed at, either. Grayson wasn't the enemy, even if she seemed like it right now. I found the hard copy of the course catalogue under my desk and flipped through it, missing the CM section entirely three times in a row. Finally I found it, and looked up Combat Shielding. It was in the section for graduate students, marked with the symbol that warned of potential danger.

“Gods
damn
him,” I growled, and dropped the catalogue on the couch.

Unbidden, my mind wove an image of him in the test: facing off against Grayson, defending himself, until he finally broke. He'd said he didn't know if he was going to become a Guardian. Was this preparation for that future, or something else entirely?

I didn't know, and neither did Robert or Liesel, and Julian wasn't going to explain himself. But there was one other person on campus I could look to for help—even if she did keep mutated carnivorous plants in her office.

Grayson's unblinking eyes settled on me the moment I sat down in front of her desk. I hadn't come to her office hours before, precisely because she made me feel like a bug on a microscope slide. But I made myself say, “I was hoping I could ask you some questions about Guardianship.”

Behind her was something that might have been the fabled Venus flytrap gone wrong. It made for an ominous background. Grayson said, “You're not the kind of student who comes here hoping for exciting tales of my past, Kimberly. Why the interest?”

People came to her office looking for gossip? Braver people than me. Even with my noble purpose, it was hard to say out loud. “I … I've been thinking about it. Becoming one.”

She didn't have to say anything, or even raise her eyebrows. I grimaced. “I know. I'm not nearly good enough at CM. Yan lessons kind of backfired on me, I think, but I'm trying to work through that. And if I succeed….” Her level stare wasn't helping. “Things go wrong. Someone has to deal with them. I'd rather be the person dealing, rather than the one standing uselessly on the sidelines.”